Being Adopted
- shawnmariespry
- Apr 1
- 2 min read
“When they got me…” This is not how one commonly begins her origin story, but for anyone adopted, it often is. This reality was never a big deal for me since I always remember hearing it. I cannot identify one day when I learned this truth of my beginnings. I always knew I was adopted because my parents always made it a normal part of my existence.
My parents avoided baby-talk and so I learned the proper names of things. I had not been born from my adoptive mother’s uterus. My birth mother gestated and birthed me but she needed another family to raise me so she placed me for adoption and that is how I came to this family. The facts were always couched in kindness and admiration for the selfless choice my birth mother made.
As a young girl, I began writing letters to my birth mom. At some point in later adolescence, I stopped writing these letters. However, my curiosity never ebbed.
My adoptive parents never made me feel ashamed for asking questions about my birth mom or my adoption. They told me honestly that they did not know her name or the circumstances of her situation but that when I turned 18, they would gladly support me if I wanted to search for her. What a wonderful gift to have their confidence! They were never insecure about being adoptive parents.
One thing they would not tell me is how much I cost. It seemed like a good questions to a curious young girl. However, when I matured, I understood they did not ever want me to conflate the cost of my adoption with my value as a human. After I turned 18 and they allowed me to see their paperwork, I found the receipt for $350.
Adjusted for the cost of inflation, this equates to $ 1,620 today. According to the Department of Heath and Human Services, today the average cost of adopting a child in the United States is $32,000! That’s a 1,875 percent increase in cost from 1970!
This is absurd! The cost of adopting a child is ridiculously high! What has caused this enormous increase? I suppose supply and demand has much to do with it. Adoption should be accessible and affordable for couples that can’t conceive.
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